I agree that this is true, but at a certain point it seems like a justified reaction to unequal importance.
Other Gelman targets like the "himmicanes" paper generated a bit of media attention without any real consequence. Power poses, meanwhile, have become a major pop-science hit. They're still being widely read and promoted, even by tech conferences and news orgs like the BBC. And Cuddy in particular has chosen an aggressive non-scientific promotion campaign while her co-authors have made more honest attempts to take on the replication question - if Carvey was getting the same amount of flak I'd be more concerned that something unfair was happening.
If power poses don't work, it seems like a much worse indictment of academic social psych than most other failures to replicate - the results were widely touted and are still being raised to public acceptance even as they fall apart. The challenges to stereotype threat, priming, and the IAT are even scarier - those results have become well-established and even enshrined in law.
Throughout the replication crisis, my greatest frustration has been the inconsistent narrative coming from researchers. They're simultaneously demanding formal academic critiques instead of blogs, ignoring those critiques when they do exist, and then replying with the same sort of informal aggression they decried in the first place.
I think you're exactly right that Gelman's aggressive approach is motivated by the field's unwillingness to acknowledge anything milder. And seeing responses like Fiske, Cuddy, and Wansink have largely convinced me that there's a major double-standard at work between the level of seriousness applied when attacking critics and the level applied when presenting results as academic truth.
They're in the same boat. It is maddening how much stereotype threat gets brought up to defend certain ideas, or how it has worked its way into corporate diversity policy, and it appears to be built on a foundation of sand [1]. The worst part is, if you question it publicly, you stand a change of being treated like James Damore.
[1] - https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201512/is...
Matter of fact I'd guess its comments like yours which are fueling the underlying issue. The usual issues with communicating emotion on the internet.
There should not be schisms on science, yet there are - camps on facts. This is a problem with far worse implications than replicability.
It such a shame for you to start viciously attacking Cuddy again for positions she clearly doesn't hold, when this article is directly about your misconceptions.
Talking about the stakes is in direct conflict with the scientific ideal of focusing on the science without talking about its effects on the scientists involved.
For example, from Gelman's response: "I just wanted to emphasize that there’s no reason her career, or even her famous Ted talk, has to rely on a particular intriguing idea (on there being a large and predictable effect of a certain pose) that happened not to work out." Well, except that maybe she wouldn't have gotten a Ted talk without it?
He's saying, hey, this paper shouldn't have been as important as it was. And according to the scientific ideal, we shouldn't get too attached to any particular results. But in practice, putting bad results aside sometimes requires a significant change of identity. Forgetting about that, even for a moment, is always going to come across as tin-eared.
The scientific ideal is more compatible with low stakes than high stakes. But talking about the game as if it's low-stakes (or ignoring the stakes altogether) when actually it's high-stakes is always going to make discussions focused on the science alone come across as unsympathetic.
A recent BBC event aimed at solving problems faced by women in tech flew Amy Cuddy in to give design and professional advice to the participants. The BBC story repeatedly celebrated Cuddy for giving the "second most watched TED talk ever". It also talked up the "Wonder Woman power pose" as a way to change your life.
Notably not present at the event were Cuddy's co-authors Carney and Yap, who have been vastly more receptive to the replication question, and less quick to promote uncertain results in non-academic channels.
Scientific falsehoods are almost always more impressive than the truth - they aren't constrained to realistic effects. At a certain point it starts to look like we're actively rewarding people for doing bad research and then rewarding them further for refusing to correct course.
Science is about finding approximations of truth that are least influenced by the local context.
The whims of a particular scientist's ego (especially if you are that scientist!) make for a rather nasty contextual influence.
Of course, this is a difficult ask, but constantly striving towards this ideal is absolutely essential.
But you also can't prevent people from learning about how the world works: the rewards and penalties that will affect their careers.
Even if you could, teaching students a myth about what a career in science is like would basically be malpractice.
But does this make sense? Can a scientist survive without doing this? Can a scientist get very far without results right now?
Is this a problem of the scientist, or perhaps the social/economic expectation?
New results are significantly more difficult and expensive to achieve in modern science, as the easier stuff has already been conquered in centuries and decades past.
The harder problems that science now works on means that distinguishing between actual results and incorrect conclusions is also much more difficult.
The growth of science as a percentage of the population and economy has also finally slowed down a few decades ago, after centuries of rocket-like growth. It is now a maturing enterprise, instead of a high-growth startup.
This means increased competition for resources and mindshare from those wanting to do science. Not surprisingly, all proxy measures and heuristics for evaluating scientific success are thus more likely to be abused.
I don't think we have fully adapted to these fundamental changes.
Disclaimer: I'm not a historian or researcher, but I've heard aspects of the above from a variety of sources, and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Of course, that's much easier for people in STEM than it is for social scientists.
This makes lesser people working in dirtier subjects very uncomfortable: when he hits them they have nothing of substance to hit back with except generic insults.
http://andrewgelman.com/2016/05/05/npr-bites/
http://andrewgelman.com/2016/11/03/its-not-about-reality-its...
I just read his blog for the first time and thought he’s a huge asshole. It seems to me the primary effect of science-shaming on the blog is to rally the pitchforks, something he can’t possibly be ignorant of. But he apparently keeps on doing it. No doubt it’s good for the hits, but doesn’t contribute to a dynamic that leads to good science. Oh wells.
A little needling on Gelman's blog is not too harsh, all things considered.
I love (genuinely, non-ironically) that you reconsidered the merits of the article after reading Gelman's positive assessment of it. A possibly underappreciated benefit of Gelman's unabashed approach to criticism is that when he writes "I thought Dominus’s article was excellent and fair to all sides", it's reasonable to assume that he actually believes this rather than just pretending to "make nice" with scripted double-talk. His willingness to criticize things that he sees as wrong makes it possible (for me, and apparently you) to trust his stated opinion of things he sees as right.
And I don't think sexism can be dismissed outright, if people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man.
You prefaced it with an "if", but do you think it is common that "people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man"? I'd guess that at this point most male academics would be significantly more reluctant to criticise in print the work of a female colleague than that of a fellow male. I see Gelman as trying to adhere (possibly recklessly) to a gender-blind approach to criticism, and find this refreshing.
I don't know whether they find it safer, but they certainly do it more, and are conditioned to do so from childhood.
Sexism comes out in target choice, and the strength of which ones chases their prey, and the vehemence of attacks.
I do strongly believe that Cuddy was overly punished for being a woman, and being prominent in the field. Everyone loves when the "high and might" come "crashing down" -> the underdog stories and the desire for retribution are sought after more powerfully than (a) justified and (b) end worthiness of the goal.
I don't think anyone can honestly say that this has improved the field and made science better. It just means now that there is money and recognition to be made being attack dogs. That's hardly better.
As for Gelman, he wasn't portrayed in a great light, but I think it is fair. He's willing to encourage incivility and outright sexism and hostility as long as he doesnt have to talk to someone he disagrees with. That's the baseline definition of a coward there. And yes, I would discuss that with him in person and call him such a thing to his face.
Gelman regularly eviscerates the research of Brian Wansink on his blog, in the exact same way that he did to Cuddy.
Theres a pattern of successful women receiving extreme levels of hate (Kathy Sierra et al). I'm not aware of this happening to guys.
Based on private conversations with mutual friends, the reason Cuddy received so much heat is that she continues to profit off the mistaken findings and refuses to disavow them, despite overwhelming evidence.
She embodies everything wrong with the popular discussion of science.
The only analogue I can think of is Brian Wansink, whose scandal is much newer; who did not go nearly so far to profit from his own results; and who has received plenty of heat so far.
"Although 11 new papers have recently been published that do not show the downstream effects of power posing on behaviors, Cuddy is still fighting for power posing."
> She mentioned, at a psychology conference where she was presenting her work, that a study had recently been conducted on power posing. “They found no hormonal effects,” she said before taking a breath. “That study is done very well, and I trust those results.” Although 11 new papers have recently been published that do not show the downstream effects of power posing on behaviors, Cuddy is still fighting for power posing. The research, she says, still shows its effect on feelings of power: At the conference, she presented a comprehensive meta-analysis, a version of which, she says, she will soon publish, with a strong P-curve supporting that, and she also presented a P-curve suggesting that power posing had a robust effect on self-evaluations, emotions and moods.
Can you be more specific? Or do you mean this in a general sense? Because isn't this obvious ignorance if so?
What I mean is that I haven't heard of guys receiving death, rape etc threats accompanied by doxxing (ie 'this is his address, let's go get him') at the levels I've heard about with women[0].
That's similar to the situation with sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
It's not that men aren't often the victims of these things (studies report that they are, at nearly the same rate as women[1, 2]). It's that men rarely report these things, and when they do, receive little sympathy, coverage, or justice.
1: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_...
2: http://domesticviolencestatistics.org/men-the-overlooked-vic...
Given the level of heat these discussions arouse, I understand the comments re modding in the item earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15507821
But what I'm doing here is drawing parallels between large groups of people self-organizing against a prominent, successful person.
It's interesting that (except for Adam Orth) the men involved, who were factually the victims of massive harassment, were portrayed as the villains by most of the media for minor infractions of progressive political values.
Edit: Just found another, an electoral college member who received death threats for voting for Trump (as he was required to).
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/308226-elec...
http://andrewgelman.com/2017/10/18/beyond-power-pose-using-r...
I thought that Gelman wasn't presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in "interpersonal conflict". But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty gracious in response to Cuddy's criticisms and how the NYT portrayed him. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the article but re-reading it after a bit of sleep, and knowing that Gelman thought it was strong, I appreciated the issues it brought up. Certainly has to be one of the longest stories about p-hacking/p-curves in mainstream media.
I sympathize with Cuddy and have no doubt that among the legit attention that Gelman and other critics have directed toward her, she's faced hatemail sparked by dumb sexism, which makes it easier to tar the legitimate criticism as being sexist.
I do think Cuddy needs to face legitimate criticism. She may not have been a malicious fraudster, but ignoring criticism after a long time is not much different than actively being deceptive. I also can believe that she faces hostile criticism that isn't equally distributed among all the other researchers who used weak, but previously acceptable standards. And I don't think sexism can be dismissed outright, if people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man.
What I wish the story had more of was how scientific criticism is done outside of Gelman's blog. Gelman is the main scientist/research I follow on the topic. Apparently some see his snarky critique as toxic, and Gelman says he is intending to reevaluate the way he writes about things so that his point doesn't get lost in cheap jokes. How do other blogs do it? I'm somewhat sympathetic to Gelman because I perceive that there is significant institutional resistance (and few incentives) to re-examine and correct a peer review study, and being harsh/edgy/rude and beating the drum over time might be the only way to get scientists to care? But that doesn't mean his critique can't be refined for the benefit of his mission.